Jerome Gambit: Coach (Part 2)

 [continued from the previous post]

As I wrote in the last post

Recently I decided to introduce the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.BXf7+) to the Chess.com bot Coach Mae. I was surprised to find that the Coach used some of my own coaching strategies in our game.

Coach Mae's comments are in purple. I have added diagrams and a few comments of my own.

perrypawnpusher - Coach Mae

Chess.com, 2023

11.Qf3 

Staying out of my reach, a fun choice. 

I tried the exchange of Queens on e5 against Kevin the fruitbat, 15 years ago.

11...Nf6 

Winning a pawn would be nice. 

12.d3 

Unfortunately for me, you noticed your pawn needed protection. 

It is interesting to note that, except for White's g-pawn being on g3 instead of g2, this is the same position as Jerome - Shinkman, Iowa, 1874 (0-1, 21).

12...Re8 

My queen is lined up with my king... 

The coach gives me a break.

Previously, I saw 12...b6 in perrypawnpusher - jeffgazet, blitz, FICS, 2010 (1-0, 31) and 12...Ke7 in perrypawnpusher - Buddy_Thompson, Chess.com, 2014 (0-1, 27).  

13.Bf4 

You got it. You immobilized my queen by pinning it to my king. That was the move! 

Thanks, coach!

13...h6 14.Nc3

You can start to think about castling. 

14...c6 15.O-O-O 

A fine move that connects your rooks!

15...Re6 16.Bxe5+ 

My favorite piece...gone. 

16...Rxe5 

I can take that, what else did you have in mind? 

17.d4 

You got me! Nice fork. 

17...Re8 

Moving my rook to a safer square! 

18.dxc5+ 

And now my king must deal with the discovered check... 

18...Ke7 

It's clearly time for my king to move. 

[to be continued]